


we bear no fruits

by Ias



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Blood Drinking, Deny your responsibilities: fuck a vampire, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Foe Yay, Mild Gore, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 03:46:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6036694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ias/pseuds/Ias
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A dark journey needs a dark guide. Haleth strikes a deal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we bear no fruits

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sath/gifts).



> Sorry to be posting this treat a little past the deadline, I just couldn't quite finish it in time. Hopefully it has improved with age ;)

They lose another one in the pass. The mists close in, and the things in the mist are not afraid of their torches this time. A few scratches, a few bruises—the worst part is mostly the fear, if you forget about the girl. Haleth wants to forget about the girl. It’s an awful, selfish impulse, and she would never indulge it. It’s still there, though. Like a piece of that strangling mist that clings to the base of her skull, whispering _wouldn’t it be easier simply not to care?_

They find the body just twenty paces from the defensive line. So close. She could have reached out a hand, could have followed the screams, just two handfuls of footsteps and then—but that, too, is a selfish impulse. For Haleth accepted a long time ago that she simply cannot save everyone.

 

 

The nights are cold in Nan Dungortheb, Haleth finds herself thinking. The words flit into her head whenever she isn’t paying attention. It sounds like a phrase that the bards might sing. Not the good bards, or at least the ones that get remembered—but the ones that get drunk near the fire in the tavern before making their music, laughing along with the crowd as they sang. _The nights are cold in Nan Dungortheb, and— and—_

Haleth doesn’t know where the song will go from there. She was never good at rhymes.

What she is good at is sitting very still, and ignoring the shiver that cascades down her back when the fabric of her tent laps like a cat’s tongue, and darkness slides inside. Her stoicism doesn’t count for much. The woman standing before her now can smell her fear. So she told Haleth, on their first meeting. And Haleth is afraid, but more afraid of what lies ahead than the monster that stands so brazenly before her.

Haleth regards her from the pallet set out on the hard rock. She does not stand, lest the creature take it as a sign of respect. The creature, or woman, or whatever she might be, will never speak first. Perhaps it’s a kind of magic, or perhaps it’s just rudeness.

“The mists came again,” Haleth says, her voice as blank as the night sky here—starless, low-hanging, brooding over a brooding land.

The creature moves, walks across the short distance in the tent to crouch down and inspect the weapons and armor Haleth shucked from herself earlier. Long fingers draw the sword partially from its scabbard, inspecting it with eyes that gobble up the light.

“The mists come, the mists go,” she says. “So it happens in this place.”

“This isn’t what you promised us,” Haleth hisses. She’s on her feet now, standing over the creature as it crouches over her gear. “Safe passage, you said.”

“I promised you only what I was able to give,” the creature murmurs. “And the giving, of course, is costly.” The shape of her mouth makes it seem that she’s always smiling, yet Haleth has learned better. It’s the smile of a snake, meaning nothing—the real smile always starts in the eyes, and Haleth knows now under what circumstances she can expect it.

“Get out,” Haleth says, and the woman rises—quickly, too quickly, for she’s suddenly in Haleth’s space.

“There will be no deaths tomorrow,” she says, “and for that favor, I will return.”

And then, Haleth is alone. The nights, as always, are cold, and in the morning there is no sun.

 

 

It would be easier, perhaps, if the creature did not keep her word. Haleth spends much of her time pondering the ways in which things could be easier, for there are many. But the easy path was never her own—she was not the water that flowed through the lowest channel, but the torrent that seethed against solid stone until even it gave way before her. She chose the long road, the hard road, and her people had chosen her—she had not considered that those two choices were not the same. Her people asked for a leader, and she gave them a death march.

The nights are cold in Nan Dungortheb. Cold, but not alone.

“How close are we to the end of it?” Haleth demands. She can’t stop herself from pacing. The thud of hard-packed earth beneath her feet helps jar her free of the reality she inhabits.

The woman stands across from her, far too still to be human. “When the time has come, you will leave this place.” Ever cryptic.

“And how do I know you are not simply leading us in circles through this void forever?” Haleth is practically snapping like a dog, even though she has no reason to be so angry—for today was one of the good days, as rare as they have become. But it is this creature before her that has secured their safety. And if they knew what Haleth paid for it, perhaps her people would not want it.

“Fear not,” the creature whispers, and there is the smile that Haleth has been waiting for. “I do not need such tricks to keep you by my side. If I wanted you there.”

“Demon,” Haleth spits.

“Remove your clothing,” the creature replies.

Haleth strips with brutal, familiar efficiency, wrenching at clasps, tossing her clothes away from herself like unclean things. Thuringwethil watches. The name travels through Haleth’s mind like the shiver that travels over her quickly bared skin. It always draws closer at times like these, creeping up on her like the dark gnaws at a guttering candle. Woman. Creature. Demon. These are safer words, words without power. But the name—the name is always there, buried beneath, waiting to pull Haleth in, and bind her.

“You had best watch your back once my people escape this cursed place,” Haleth says, tossing the last of her clothes aside. “The moment our bargain is complete, I will kill you if I see you.”

“I would want nothing less. Death is all you’re able to give, after all.” Thuringwethil’s eyes linger over every inch of Haleth’s body, the goosebumps raring against her flesh like the points of something sharp pressing up from the inside. It’s cold, Haleth tells herself. Nothing more than the cold. But when Thuringwethil reaches out it’s to seize the back of Haleth’s neck in a grip as hard and cold as iron, and the almost-pain of it sends a shiver down Haleth’s spine that is absolutely not from the air. There’s no time to think. For Thuringwethil pulls her in, and the always-smiling mouth peels back, and inside of it the teeth are as pale and thin as slivers of the moon. They sink into Haleth’s neck. There’s fire in her veins, fire with an aftertaste of a different, hungrier heat.

Haleth’s fingers are numb as they fumble the ancient silks from Thuringwethil’s body. She told herself, not this time. It’s a familiar refrain, and a meaningless one. For her hands know the planes and curves of Thuringwethil’s body well by now, and if she imagines crushing the birdlike bones under the creature’s skin, well, it makes Haleth’s caresses all the more fervent. Thuringwethil drinks her like a long draft of wine, even as her pale hands drift up the inside of Haleth’s thighs. _The nights are cold the nights are cold so cold so cold so cold—_

And then, Haleth doesn’t care about anything for a while.  

Afterwards they lie together, Haleth exhausted and Thuringwethil triumphant. In a moment, Haleth thinks, she will rise and begin to dress again, though there are many hours of the night before her. She doesn’t want to taste the dreams that might wait for her tonight, and she doesn’t want to be the one to wake up alone. It’s all a matter of who can pull back the fastest, of course. She looks down at the woman lying naked and pale on her pallet, and meets the dark eyes. The creature is smiling.

“Shall I ask you to stay?” she murmurs. Her soft words are cut to ribbons escaping from that mouth.

Haleth turns and leaves without a word. She walks the camp, lets the cold seep into her bones, until the warmth she left behind in her tent is snuffed out. She tells herself, this is peace.

 

 

It is a strange thing between them, but strange things grow strong and wild in this land. Haleth would have never thought of buying her people’s safety with a kiss ( _and so much more than that_ , a voice in the back of her mind whispers); but the long dark days of the journey dragged on, and each new death was another weight dragging their feet, until it seemed they could drag them no further. The creature appeared shortly after that. And Haleth gave her everything she wanted, and promised herself she did not want it too.

“Why me?” she asks one night, with her head still muddled from the blood taken and the pleasure given. Thuringwethil is pressed to her back, pale fingers prickling over the sweat on Haleth’s body like spiders. Haleth cannot see her face, and cannot imagine the expression there. But then Thuringwethil laughs, low and dark in Haleth’s ear.

“I could answer that question. But I rather like the idea of you wondering, night after night, what it was inside of you that burned so darkly to draw me.”

Haleth stiffens. A moment later she wrenches away, hands flying up to shove the creature back—but the woman is gone, nothing more than a fluttering of the tent’s fabric and another echo of that awful laugh sliding down Haleth’s back.

Haleth knows she should stop. If her people knew what darkness she consorted with on their behalf, they were half as likely to drive her out to join it as they were to thank her. But each death, as rarely as they come now, is a reminder of why she cannot. For it is then more than ever that Haleth needs what Thuringwethil offers, the distraction, the oblivion, the blissful lack of guilt. Haleth tells herself that she is paying a heavy price, and the lie sits even heavier in her chest.

But still it goes on. And Haleth is not sure how to stop.

One night (and of course, it is always at night) Thuringwethil takes her time. She has Haleth remove her clothing, as usual, and then simply stands before her, staring at the hard body with its wiry hair and dark skin, such a contrast to Thuringwethil’s own. As her fingers trace the scars on Haleth’s skin she laughs, as if savoring the memory of Haleth’s past hurts. “You ought to take greater care with yourself. What a shame if your people were to lose their leader.”

Perhaps it is the rare cup of wine she indulged in with her captains, but Haleth is not quick to bat her hands away. “Is that a threat, or are you simply concerned for my wellbeing?”

Thuringwethil presses the edge of a nail into the line of a scar on Haleth’s shoulder. “If anything in Nan Dungortheb kills you, it will be me.”

“Then I have nothing to worry about. Now stop wasting time.”

Thuringwethil chuckles, even as her hands raise to send her shift sliding down the pale angles of her body. “You enjoy my company. It is not only because you are so lonely, though of course that plays a part; something in you recognizes itself in me. The same darkness.”

Haleth seizes Thuringwethil’s hands as they return to her body, her grip tight in warning. The charitable feelings have evaporated once again. “Keep your poisoned tongue in your mouth.”

“Is that really what you would prefer?” Thuringwethil sinks to her knees, staring up at Haleth with those huge eyes full of shadow. Her hands slide up the backs of Haleth’s thighs, gently ease them apart. The kiss she presses to the tender flesh between them is chaste and mocking. She glances up at Haleth’s face before her tongue slides out, and Haleth shudders with it.

“I thought not,” Thuringwethil murmurs, and there’s nothing chaste about her now. After some time her mouth wanders, planting sticky kisses on the insides of Haleth’s thighs—and then the kisses become sharp. Haleth closes her eyes, but she cannot close out the wet sucking sounds, nor the shivers of pleasure they send racing up and down her spine. She feels Thuringwethil’s fingers working inside of her, and the image flashes across her mind, a bolt of red lightning: of Thuringwethil plunging her long nails into a wound in Haleth’s flesh, digging past muscle and veins, but still there is no pain. Her thighs are wet. When she comes, Haleth twists and moans like a tortured thing, and Thuringwethil holds her fast.

In the days that come, Haleth’s people are quiet around her. She tells herself it is merely this place, and yet—do they suspect? Do they know? She should tell the creature to limit her visits. Yet when she spends that night alone, burning in ice, she knows that she will say nothing. Only as Thuringwethil drinks from her does she finally feel it—the ability to let everything go. She could never manage it with another person, never let her guard down. Yet now it is dragged down, and she is open and vulnerable in the arms of her enemy, and she cannot bring herself to care.

Thuringwethil’s skin is cold against her own, and Haleth can never be certain whether the pulse she feels beneath that icy skin is merely a reflection of her own.

“You are drawing near.”

Haleth sits up, her eyes sharp. “How near? Weeks? Days?”

Thuringwethil’s face is closed. “In good time. All things in good time.” And then the smile returns as cold and cruel as ever, though it doesn’t touch her eyes. “I think you’ll miss me, when you go,” she says.

Haleth laughs without mirth. “Is that what you wish to think?”

“I think that you will always be alone. It is your nature.” There is no mockery in Thuringwethil’s eyes now. Only a clarity that pierces to the bone, one which Haleth cannot escape. “I think when you are lying alone in the dark, with no company to warm you and save you from the darkness of your own thoughts, you will remember what it felt as I drew your blood. And you will long for it.” Her hand reaches up to touch Haleth’s cheek in a parody of a caress. “You will remember these nights as the warmest of your life.”

Haleth bats her hand away. “I am never alone,” she snarls. “I have my people. I need nothing more.”

Thuringwethil laughs. “Your people? You do not love them, and they do not love you.”

“You lie!”

“Do I? You plunged into the depths of Nan Dungortheb in the hopes of dislodging them, yet they followed you all the same. Perhaps then they truly did love you. But love is a delicate weed, and there is no light to feed it here. You strangled their devotion and they will strangle you.”

“Stop!” Haleth cries, leaping to her feet. She knows the creature lies, that lying is its nature. She turns her back, struggling to control her breathing. “I would give anything for my people,” she says harshly. “I’ve given them _this_ , haven’t I?” Her eyes turn accusingly back to the creature in her bed, a hand raising to the already fading marks on her neck.

“Ah, because that was such an awful price to pay,” the creature sneers, rising to her own feet. The ribs and hollows of her body capture the firelight and darken it like rust. “You did this for your own desires as much as for your people’s benefit. You think you would give every drop of your life’s blood for them, but you _wouldn’t_ , would you?” The woman leans forward. “You love life too dearly. And like me, you care only for yourself.”

The pauldron Haleth seizes from the ground beside her hits nothing but empty air, hitting the fabric of the tent and clattering to the ground once more. Words freeze on Haleth’s tongue: _You are not welcome here. Our deal is over. Never come back._ None of them pass her lips. She merely stands there suspended in the darkness and knows that whatever choice she had once, she made it long ago.

The night is cold. She returns to bed.

Tomorrow, the sun begins to come out.

 

 

At first Haleth thinks the fog is getting thicker as they travel through the endless days. Then she realizes that it is merely brighter—that the light must be coming from somewhere. The rocky teeth of the land grow blunter. The stink of sulfur turns to the dusty smell of rock. The first tree they see is a twisted dead thing, but the next still has some green leaves. People touch them as they walk by, the gesture like a form of prayer. Haleth pauses by the tree, the last to do so, and reaches out for that tiny green bud of life—but her fingers fall short, and she walks past it with her hands clenched at her side.

That same day, they reach the end. The mist ends at the same place the grass begins, a tough brown carpet clinging to the hard-packed dirt. When Haleth’s people cross onto it some of them fall to their knees, staring wide eyed into an open sky and the distant sun that waits there.

Haleth watches from a rise a short distance away, overseeing the movements of the crowd to ensure everyone gets out safely. At a certain moment she can sense that she is no longer alone. She does not turn to meet the dark eyes she can feel watching her.

The last of her people steps onto the tough rind of grass. Now, she is the only one left. The curtain of mist is between them—her people are strange, distant shapes in the fog, almost monstrous. They call her name.

“It is done,” the creature says beside her. “Our bargain has been fulfilled.”

Haleth says nothing. The air is filled with wisps of fog and half-remembered vows, the severed ends of the tie that bound them flapping listlessly without a wind. Haleth had thought that everything would be clearer at the end. She thinks perhaps if she turned around now, the half-light would reveal Thuringwethil as the monster she truly is. Perhaps then Haleth could hate her. But she doesn’t want that, and she doesn’t know why.

Without the contract that held them together, Haleth does not now who or what it is that stands beside her now. An enemy, yes. Yet when the pale hand slides up to touch the side of Haleth’s neck to feel the leap of her pulse beneath them, she neither flinches nor pulls away. Not even when Thuringwethil’s lips press a kiss just below her ear, and whisper one final darkness against her skin.

“Know that I will be here for you, Haleth daughter of Haldad, when your nature drives you back to me.”

The dagger is in Haleth’s hand in the blink of an instant as she whirls around, slicing with a hoarse gasp in the air, going right for the heart. There’s nothing waiting to meet it. The creature is gone, a fluttering of imperceptible wings that buffets Haleth from all side, with the edge of laughter between them. A moment later Haleth is truly alone.

Slowly, mechanically, Haleth returns her dagger to the sheath. Her hand hangs in the mist before her, listless and ethereal. She stares at it as if it belongs to a stranger. Perhaps she could have moved faster. Given less warning. Perhaps this too was a choice that she made a long time ago, one she can only live with. Thuringwethil lives. That knowledge weighs Haleth’s feet as she turns away from the shadows that embraced her, and she embraced back.

The mists are behind her. Ahead, her people await. Haleth turns to join them, following their cries like the mewl of birds, and for the first time feels sunlight on her skin. It is a weak, watery sun, and it leaves her cold.


End file.
